


Resilience

by LittleSpider



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers - Freeform, Avengers Family, Avengers Feels, Clintasha - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Whump, kinda origin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSpider/pseuds/LittleSpider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint gets the call he's always dreaded when Natasha's injured during a mission.</p><p>-------------------------</p><p>A possible explanation as to why Natasha's hair is shorter in The Avengers as opposed to Iron Man 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resilience

Clint was in Tehran when he got the call.

He was protecting Director Fury who insisted on having not one, but two fantastic marksmen at his side when he met with the leader of an unstable, but nevertheless important leader of a separatist group.

He was just boarding the plane that was taking them back to America when Coulson gave him the news that made his heart free-fall into his stomach and down through the floor.

“Romanoff has been injured.”

It was protocol to inform the other team mates when a team member was compromised in some way, but he could hear the apology that constricted his supervising officer’s voice box that meant this was something quite personal.

It took several false starts, Clint swallowed his questions and confirmed he heard and his ETA before hanging up and taking his seat in the jet in the co-pilots seat as Agent Ward sat opposite Director Fury, taking further orders.

Clint had his mission to hang his sanity on to as he ran down a ritual of tasks, ensuring he got his Director home and their team before he could finally give in to the panic.

He kept the questions at bay with a routine checking that he ran on a circuit all the way home.

Natasha was one of the best in the field, utterly dedicated, not letting a single distraction break her intense concentration. How had they let this happen?

As the pilot began to descend, he felt the panic break through the membrane of forced peace he had surrounded his heart with as swear prickled on his brow.

“….Barton. Set to land?” the Pilot asked.

“Yeah.” he nodded and swallowed it back down as they began the landing sequence.

As soon as his boots touched the tarmac he handed over his equipment, signed in his paperwork to the registry and saluted Fury before heading for the double doors.

“Barton, wait!”

It was Coulson, he had been waiting for Clint to touch down by the absence of folders in his hands.

“…Where is she?” he asked. The question that fought its way to his lips first.

“She’s in intensive care.” Coulson responded, touching Clint’s elbow and turning him towards the door.

“What happened? Tell me everything…”

Coulson steered them towards an empty, grey corridor.

“She was on her way back from a routine data extraction in Venice. She didn’t even need to fire her guns. Something just happened, on her way to the airfield. She got shot by what we believe to be a sniper’s bullet. Fortunately, the assassin was a crap shot and the shot just glanced her skull. They found her and brought her straight in.”

“…And the damage?”

“She’s had to have surgery.”

“Surgery…” The word laid heavy on his tongue. He became aware he’d stopped walking some time back and that Coulson was once again urging him to move.

“…She’s recovering well. The Doctors just need to be sure…Come on. I signed you in as a permitted visitor. She’ll need someone to calm her down when she realizes what’s happened.”

Clint nodded and began to walk again, following Coulson.

Anything Coulson said after this was obscured by the roar of rhetorical questions and self assassination.

Natasha had been given the brief a week before he was due to fly out with Fury and she had expressed half-joking she wouldn’t mind him ‘tagging along’ to hold her bags.

Now he wished he’d told Fury to watch his own damn back and gone with her.

A faceless, Italian Sniper shot Natasha as she drove along in a topless convertible, her glorious red hair flowing in the breeze, blood spurted from the top of her head as she slumped…

“…Phil…” he began suddenly. “…did she crash?”

Coulson’s forehead crinkled a little, his lined eyes tightening.

“…Come on.” he urged.

The rest of the short walk to the medical wing of the hub was deafeningly silent.

Coulson bypassed the reception area that seemed to expect him and propelled Barton to one of the private rooms he had once occupied as a patient.

“Romanoff, Natasha.”—read the blue whiteboard marker on the wipe clean title board to her room.

Coulson pushed open the door, and nodded him in.

Clint hated the smell of the medical wing. It smelt like the orphanage he had been brought up in. Starch and fucking disinfectant.

But the sound, the beeping.

He was not expecting that.

He looked directly to the bed where he was expecting to see Natasha, asleep probably but instead saw someone who vaguely looked like her.

It couldn’t be her.

Natasha had long, flowing red hair that seemed to be endless.

He found stray strands of it in the Velcro strips on his uniform. On his jacket. Hell, sometimes even in his car.

He had grabbed hold of it more than once in their sparring matches and she had bitten him on the wrist as punishment.

This couldn’t be Natasha.

This woman had short hair…

Short, red hair that barely passed her ears and poked up at odd angles under the bandage that was wrapped around her head, padding it out as the woman rested dependently against the pillows.

Clint moved over to the bed and leaned over this stranger in the bed, running his thumb against her cheeks, tracing the line of the oxygen pipe that led to her nose and watched as the strangers image blurred momentarily through painfully full eyes into the Natasha he knew.

“…Her hair was matted with blood, Clint. It needed to be cut so they could get to her skull…” Coulson began, closing the door behind him.

Clint swallowed a big ball of pain as his hand moved upwards, brushing a stray curl that poked through the bandage. It yielded before flicking back up again.

__

Resilience.

He turned to look at Coulson. His eyes stinging, his throat clogged with unspent emotion as he pushed himself away from the woman on the bed.

“…She’s gonna be fuckin’ pissed.” he said hoarsely.

Coulson gave him a faint smile.

“…I’ll be around. I have to fill in some paperwork to do with the insurance…Call me if you need me.”

Clint nodded, sitting down in the plastic chair besides her bed and set himself up as sentry.

He knew he was needed at a debrief, but was hoping Coulson could get him out of it so he could wait for his partner to wake up.

At some point between getting dark and 4am, he fell asleep.

Typically, in the most uncomfortable position, he woke up too a stiff neck and sore back muscles after falling asleep while leaning on his fist.

He winced as he straightened his back and blinked a few times, smacking his lips experimentally before looking to the bed.

At some point, Natasha had turned her head to the side, her hand on her stomach, an obscene number of tubes pushed into it.

Clint leaned forwards again and put his hand on her arm, hoping it wasn’t too sore.

“…Tasha. I have to be back in New Mexico in a few days…” he began. “…But I don’t know…I…” he sighed.

She’d bounced back from worse than this. She’d been comatose for a week before after getting a concussion from a bad fall but been back up and about in no time, but…somehow, this time felt different.

Perhaps it was the fact she had to have her beautiful head of hair cut off, perhaps it was that he was being dispatched in a few days to do some work in New Mexico, perhaps it was the fact she’d been in New York with Stark and he hadn’t had the chance to hang out with her for a while.

Perhaps he was wondering if her time with Stark had ch—-

She gave a soft sigh and opened her eyes.

“…Nat?!”

She moved her head towards him.

“…Clint?”

Clint felt the relief ooze out of ever pore in a wonderfully cool sweat.

“…Nat…” he repeated, leaning over, a grin on his face that he felt should be less enthusiastic.

Her green eyes were hazed over with sleep and her features confused, as she reached her hand up to touch her head.

Clint wanted to take her hand to encourage her not to, that perhaps it was too soon to learn she’d lost her hair but when her fingers found the modest curls of red hair that stuck out at odd angles he saw dopey recognition flash through her eyes.

“…Oh.” she said softly and turned her gaze on Clint.

Clint gave her a half smile, a consoling smile, a compensatory smile that somehow said:

'Sorry we had to cut your hair off'.

“…You alright, Tasha?” he asked.

She nodded sleepily, closing her eyes.

“…Sure…Sure…It’s…its gonna grow back…….” she muttered before drifting back off into a sleep.

__

Resilience.

Clint watched her slide back under the warm blanket of sleep and smiled, his hand moving instinctively to stroke hers but decided against it.

Natasha was sleeping so peacefully, it would be cruel to disturb it for a very selfish reason…


End file.
